Knitting Chickens

Today is a special day at our house. Exactly one year ago today we went to the post office and picked up a box filled with 25 peeping chicks. We nurtured our baby chicks to 6 week old gawky weirdos in our bathroom in a refrigerator box and then moved them to their new coop outside in our backyard. We didn't keep all 25 of them, just 5. Today we are celebrating Compsognathus, Octopus Pie, Fire, Boingy and Captain Dan's first birthday. They are little egg laying machines and so much fun. In lieu of the celebration I thought I'd knit up a handful of chickens, so I got one done. I have all kinds of yucky old acrylic yarn laying around that I got for like 50 cents a skein a while back, so maybe in 10 years if I keep knitting little stuffed animals I'll have it all used up. I just have to keep creating one creature a day. My intention was to knit a chicken that resembled each chicken we have but I only got Fire (our yellow chicken) done in time for the celebration.

So I used size 4 double pointed needles, simply because I don't have just regular size 4 needles. The pattern I was sort of following was in my book Knitted Animals - which has a wide assortment of beautiful little knitted animals in it. Luckily there are three chickens to choose from. I started off with yarn that was too big though so I just went out on a limb. I worked in stockinette stitch, so knitting the entire time. I think I cast on 16 and then knitted until I thought it looked close to square. I folded the creation into a triangle and sewed the two sides together and stuffed the baby bird right from the bottom point and sewed closed.

I then used another piece of this acrylic yarn and sewed it around the body to create the dip in the chicken's back. I also stitched a bit of beak on using some orange acrylic yarn (I have every color of this stuff you can imagine!).

starting to look chicken-like

Then I crocheted a bit of red acrylic yarn to create the comb. I didn't really know what I was doing, just "winged" it. It ended up looking enough like a comb that I was happy with it. Oh and I used some black yarn (the really heavy stuff - good for buttons) to make the little eyes. It by no means is a perfect bird but it made my kids happy. Maybe by Easter I'll have more to fill their little baskets. That's my goal. It is all about setting little goals for myself, that's how things get done with five chickens, two kids, a toy store and an oil business (just to mention a few things).

Ooh we even had time to make some corn cake for breakfast for the chickens (they shared with us too). Look at that happy little knitted chicken.

Who knew a knitted chicken could lay so many eggs! Happy Birthday and Happy Knitting!